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A stroll through New Market, Md.

This is the first post in a new series I call Small Towns, Tiny Towns. We all pass through some of these when we’re out driving in the countryside. Some readers may actually live in one. Often we just think of them as wide spots in the road. in the past many of them were thriving communities but today they are relegated to just a small dot on the map, if they are even marked. Most if not all of them residents that are proud of the town and do their best to keep its memory alive.

The next couple paragraphs are from the About page.

Small towns, even tiny towns fascinate me – the kind that could be called “wide spots in the Road”. Sometimes they will hardly show up on Google Maps, most of the time they will be villages that earn a dot or circle on maps. I have no schedule but I hope to make a posting at least monthly, but no promises. I will be roaming in Maryland, and surrounding states from time to time and just taking photos, roughly at random. There is a lot to see in nowhere’ville. I’ll be wandering around with no real destination in mind, and taking shots from odd points of view, not the typical tourist view. So get ready to see some different views.

Places that interest me include: Sykesville, Galesville, Chestertown, Queenstown, Stevenstown – all in Maryland, as well as some in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolina’s, and possibly Georgia. If you have a favorite you’d like to see please send me a comment and I’ll see if it fits into my travels.

Now on to the first of what I hope will be a long running series

New Market, Maryland

New Market once was a thriving village on the National Road and the Gateway to the West. but today it is mainly a mecca for Antique hunters. But in 1954, U.S. Route 40 moved a mile or so south, more recently US-40 was swallowed up by I-70. Most east-west traffic bypasses New Market. The 2010 census counted a bit over 600 residents. Known locally as “The Antique Capitol of Maryland” New Market in eastern Frederick County

Before I get away from the National Pike let me add a few links to its history.

Late in June 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac pursued Gen. Robert
E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia as it invaded the North less than
a year after the Antietam campaign. On Monday June 29, the Federal
Corps marched northward toward Pennsylvania on parallel roads like the
fingers of a glove, after being ordered to tay between and he large
Northern cities.
…
General George Sykes marched northeastward along present day Rte.26 to
Liberty and Unionville. Gen John Sedgwick’s VI Corps, which guarded
the army’s right flank move by here (New Market) to Mount Airy and
Westminster, reaching Manchester on June 30. Then next day the corps
began an epic 34-mile march to Gettysburg and arrived late in the
afternoon of July 2.
—
A soldier in the 37th Massachusetts Infantry, VI Corps, later wrote
that on entering New Market, “two or three young ladies were
discovered standing in front of their home waving small Union
flags. It was an electrifying sight\, and the enthusiasm which had
pervaded the troops in advance was emphasized from the strong throats
of the Thirty-seventh. There was no question that they were in the
land of friends.

The photos are at random, but show some of the old buildings and how they look now. We’ll start at the Town Hall. There’s no order to these, just a photo-stroll one Sunday afternoon.